White population aging rapidly in US, dying faster than babies are born, data show

FOX NEWS - Deaths of non-Hispanic white people now outnumber births in the majority of U.S. states for the first time ever between 2015 and 2016, new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau show.

The figures reveal that the country’s white population is aging rapidly – an average white American is 43.5 years old – as more whites postpone having children.

Meanwhile, minority populations in the U.S. are rising significantly faster thanks to immigration flows and younger population of Hispanic Americans, who are on average 29.3 years old.

According to the Census Bureau projection, whites in America will constitute less than 50 percent of the population around 2045, a demographic shift many have foreseen for a long time.

But the new report signals that the change may come faster than previously predicted as it revealed that the white population is now dying faster than it's being replaced in 26 states – up from 17 just two years ago, the New York Times reported.

“It’s happening a lot faster than we thought,” Rogelio Sáenz, a demographer at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a co-author of the report, told the newspaper.

The report shows that the number of white Americans declined by 0.02 percent between 2016 and 2017, totaling 197.8 million people. In comparison, the Hispanic population has continued to grow throughout the years and reached nearly 59 million people, benefitting from the 2.1 percent increase over last year.